Apparently ignoring just how badly this worked out for publishers in Germany, the Spanish Parliament has passed a law to fine aggregators and search engines for using snippets or linking to infringing content. As plenty of folks have described, the bill is clearly just a Google tax. As we had discussed, the proposed bill would be a disaster for digital commons/open access projects. There had been some thought that the proposed bill might be delayed because of a referral to the EU Court of Justice on a related issue, but apparently that didn't happen. Either way, it looks like the bill kept the ridiculous "inalienable right" to being paid for snippets -- meaning that Creative Commons-type licenses may not even be allowed, and people won't even be allowed to offer up their content for free. That's ridiculous.

It appears that almost everyone dislikes the law that passed. On the internet/aggregator side of things, the law doesn't make any sense at all, and seems likely to harm any sort of aggregator setup. And, meanwhile, those who want greater copyright expansion felt the law was a "missed opportunity" that is described as "vague and weak." I guess the silver lining is that "it could have been worse."

This idea of taxing aggregators for promoting your content is still completely ridiculous. It remains to be seen if Google takes the same approach as it did in Germany, removing the snippets of those who protest, only to have them begging to put them back -- except that, unlike in Germany, the newspapers may not be able to grant a free license thanks to the whole "inalienable right" thing. Either way, it's unfortunate that this seems to be the direction Europe is heading in. These kinds of laws are a recipe for chilling effects on innovation online, scaring companies away from doing useful things.